The Planet

Harald Sitter: Neon OEM Mod…arghhh

Harald Sitter writes that Ubiquity (Ubuntu's installer) has had an OEM mode which never worked well with the Qt interface. Harald explains the OEM mode and issues that were of concern with the Slimbook project (using KDE neon) which led to Harald & Jens Reuterberg improving it. Screenshots of links are provided.

Stéphane Graber: Ubuntu Core in LXD containers

Stéphane Graber reminds us that Ubuntu Core, current series 16 released in November 2016, is fully-transactional and based on read-only snap packages. Stéphane gives the requirements for Ubuntu Core on LXD and provides commands needed to launch, view, update, install some snaps and more. Many command examples and links are provided.

Simos Xenitellis: How to install Inkscape 0.92 (latest) as a snap in Ubuntu 16.04

Simos Xenitellis tells us about Inkscape 0.92 providing links to video and release notes should you want to know more. He provides commands needed to install a snap version of Inkscape in Ubuntu 16.04, plus screenshots and information on what appears within Ubuntu Software, and more.

James Page: snap install openstackclients

James Page reminds us about what snaps are--in particular, mentioning them with regard to Python projects. He shares that if you're running Ubuntu 16.04, installing openstackclients is very easy and provides commands and other notes. The openstackclients snap is currently aligned to the Newton OpenStack release. Link to GitHub snap source is provided, with kudos given to the snapcraft team for doing a great job with the Python plugin.

Other Community News

16.04.2 delayed until Feb 9 for HWE issues

Adam Conrad and the Ubuntu release team, having received notice of a potential arm64 boot problem, has approved the 16.04.2 release to be delayed for a week. This will allow testing to be performed on the boot regression problem with arm64. The new expected release date is February 9, 2017.

Gearing up for issue 500 with quotes and a quiz!

To celebrate Issue 500 of Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, readers are invited to take part in a newsletter-related quiz and to submit notes of thanks to contributors if they wish. Responses are due 20 February 2017 and will be announced in issue 500.

Ubuntu Cloud News

Ubuntu Phone News

FreedomPop en Ubuntu Phone

Marcos Costales reflects on his experience when using a FreedomPop Spain SIM in his Ubuntu Phone. He was unsure if the data connection would work or not but happily reports that it works well. Marcos includes some screenshots in his post to show how he activated the data connection. Article is in Spanish.

In The Press

A Look at What's Next for Ubuntu Linux in 2017

Sean Michael Kerner, writing for eWeek, refers to a video interview with Mark Shuttleworth discussing the codename for the 17.10 release after end of the alphabet will have been reached with 17.04. He says that Ubuntu Core, the LXD hypervisor, the internet of things, and Snappy will continue to be worked on and that Shuttleworth is also optimistic about the continued evolution of the Ubuntu desktop and Unity 8. Sean embeds a video of the interview in his post.

In The Blogosphere

Marius Nestor of Softpedia tells us that Canonical's Michael Vogt had the pleasure to announce snapd 2.22 has been released for Ubuntu. This new release introduces new features such as support for X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts, automatic transition of Snaps from ubuntu-core to core, the new 'reload-command' option in snap.yaml, ability to disable sshd from the core config, plus other improvements.

Meet the $114,725 Ubuntu server with eight Nvidia Tesla P100 GPUs

Agam Shah of PC World shows and tells us about System 76's new Ibex Pro. Agam lists some basic specs, options and prices for the rack-mounted server, which is aimed at machine learning tasks like speech and image recognition. The Ibex Pro ships with Ubuntu by default.

Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS Delayed Until February 9 Due to Serious Boot Regression

Marius Nestor of Softpedia writes that Leann Ogasawara, Ubuntu kernel manager, has reported a boot regression on Arch64 hardware which will take time to resolve. Canonical's Adam Conrad approved the delay; so now ISOs aren't expected until February 9. Ubuntu 16.04.2 will ship with the Linux 4.8 kernel.

Featured Audio and Video

Ubuntu Testing Day – Ubuntu Core and QEMU

Leo Arias resumes the weekly series of Ubuntu Testing Day sessions in which various guests are invited to talk about their projects. This week’s topic for discussion is snap-based Ubuntu Core which is introduced by Michael Vogt.

Glossary of Terms

Ubuntu - Get Involved

The Ubuntu community consists of individuals and teams, working on different aspects of the distribution, giving advice and technical support, and helping to promote Ubuntu to a wider audience. No contribution is too small, and anyone can help. It's your chance to get in on all the community fun associated with developing and promoting Ubuntu. http://community.ubuntu.com/contribute/